The Nοῦς-Body Relationship in Aristotle's De Anima
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F21%3A10438401" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/21:10438401 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003008484-14" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003008484-14</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003008484-14" target="_blank" >10.4324/9781003008484-14</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
The Nοῦς-Body Relationship in Aristotle's De Anima
Original language description
Since antiquity interpreters have disagreed as to whether νοῦς (intellect) according to Aristotle is separable from the body or is rather, as a part of the form of the body, inseparable from it by its very definition. I argue that this traditional dilemma is a false one. It leads to either illegitimately separating νοῦς from its organic unity with the body or improperly assimilating it to other parts of the soul. In fact, I argue, νοῦς according to Aristotle does not fall under the narrow definition of soul as something whose activity numerically coincides with an activity of the body, and so no inseparability follows from its definition. At the same time, however, Aristotle finds strong reasons for believing in its inseparability in the nature of its objects: if what it thinks is always the cause for some X of its being Y and if X is only accessible through the perceptive capacity (which is inseparable from the body by its very definition), then our νοῦς cannot be active and, by implication, cannot exist separately from the body. The inference is more problematic when it comes to objects existing separately from matter, such as the movers of the heaven, each of which turns out to be a νοῦς thinking itself independently from a body. And this is why the issue of separability cannot, according to Aristotle, be decided on the level of natural philosophy. There are, nonetheless, good reasons to think that Aristotle's first philosophy provides, in his eyes, the missing premises supporting an argument that infers that our νοῦς is ontologically inseparable from our body even if we are able to think immaterial objects.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Encounters with Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind
ISBN
978-0-367-43913-2
Number of pages of the result
32
Pages from-to
249-280
Number of pages of the book
388
Publisher name
Routledge
Place of publication
London
UT code for WoS chapter
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